2. A Wireless Retail Printing Kiosk

Liberty Photo, Ricoh, and PrinterOn have partnered to develop a “Community Print Location” printer, which it hopes will soon find its way into hotels, grocery stores, department stores, and other retail outlets.

The Community Print Location printers can accept print jobs via email, via the web, and - this is the best part - via wireless devices, so you upload directly to the printer by simply standing in front of it with a wireless device such a laptop, cell phone, or PDA. Although Liberty hasn’t mentioned them by name, even devices such as cameras using the Eye-Fi wireless memory card, should be able to wirelessly upload images to the printing stations.

Documents will be encrypted with 128 bit AES and standard RSA public/private key pairs, and only decrypted when a user enters a password at the print station just before printing. Although no encryption system is perfect, this should be more than sufficient to protect photos and documents from curious eyes, on the part of either Community Print Location employees, or someone gaining unauthorized access to the system.

"With our partners Ricoh Americas Corporation and PrinterOn we have created a turnkey solution for our customers and for consumers," said Duke Chadsey, senior vice president, product development and marketing for Liberty. "Like a mini print shop, our CPL lets consumers leverage any means to print—whether they are on the road and send their files to a specific retail location to eventually pick up, or are on site and send the image for print from any device on-hand—their printing needs are met."

Major chains such as Walgreen’s have already started to explore print solutions for digital camera users, by placing self serve kiosks in select locations. The addition of internet and wireless access to self service print stations should be a good selling point for Liberty, in dealing with retail chains that already have less accessible print stations, and in pitching their product to retail outlets that haven’t yet ventured into what Liberty calls the “Community Print Location” market.